Duggars by the Dozen 45: Life with Josh in Prison and Marrying as Fast as They Can

[Cam]

23 hours ago, Meggo said:

But that's it - you'd go to places you read about in books. And you'd want to see art. I'm not sure their homeschooling covered much in the way of art or secular books. 
My favorite way to experience a place is to just get lost. Find one or two things that I want to see (and I didn't see Buckingham Palace when I was there -I think I saw Westminster, I did go to the Tower, did see London Bridge) and then just get lost at a pub for an afternoon. 

What I began to realize as I evolved away from Christianity is how exceedingly limiting religion is. The world offers so much but the cultish religions insist that you not partake in almost any of it. The narrow-minded tunnel vision of “walk this way, talk this way”, the rigidity of read this, don’t read that, the rules and regulations are so confining. It’s like walking around in a mental straight jacket your entire life. 

[xenobia]

So what's up with the obnoxious Lost boys? I asked the internet what they are doing these days. 

Jason went silent. I'm assuming that it's because he (hopefully) grew up a bit, and that he doesn't want to put a relationship out there before an engagement or perhaps wedding. There has been talk about him and Claire Langon, and a photo that is presumably taken quite recently was posted on Reddit, with Jason, Claire and her parents as guest on a wedding. I assume he still lives in Arkansas and works in construction. And that we will have two Clare Duggars before the end of this year. 

James is working hard every week. Not in construction, but at retaining his position as the most horrible Duggar son not in prison. He's a regular poster on social media. He drives fast cars without seat belt/helmet, loves Trump and behaves horrible in general. His last instastory today was on a boat with friends, both male and female. Two weeks ago it was an old army truck. He's taking helicopter pilot lessons from Jer, and recently visited Trace and Lydia (instastories). 

Justin moved to Texas after marriage. No baby news even though they married over 2 years ago, and I'm sure that at least Ma Spivey would tell us if a grandkid was on the way. His old Instagram isn't there anymore. Don't know why. 

Jackson went to Alert academy in 2022. After that? We have no idea.   

[backyard sylph]

On 5/4/2023 at 8:16 AM, Meggo said:

But that's it - you'd go to places you read about in books. And you'd want to see art. I'm not sure their homeschooling covered much in the way of art or secular books. 
My favorite way to experience a place is to just get lost. Find one or two things that I want to see (and I didn't see Buckingham Palace when I was there -I think I saw Westminster, I did go to the Tower, did see London Bridge) and then just get lost at a pub for an afternoon. 

I used to do that in New York from time to time. And back home where I grew up in Kansas City and surrounding areas. Here where I live now, it's quite different. But also, I am getting older... 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I think I saw a blurry pic of Hannie, Jenny, and Jackson at SDC with some fundie friends and Elijah of course. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

That might be Anna in the background trying to avoid being in the picture. 

[AussieKrissy]

19 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

That might be Anna in the background trying to avoid being in the picture. 

Nah not avoiding the picture Anna does that weird head thing when she talks

[gustava]

If Anna's nose gets any further upward, she's gonna fall over backwards.

[GracieLou Free Duggar]

7 hours ago, gustava said:

If Anna's nose gets any further upward, she's gonna fall over backwards.

You would think she would have learned that by now.

[xenobia]

An update on my least favourite Duggar not in jail, aka James.

He appeared in Jed's video on Truetts birthday video, which was filmed May 1'st (they say so in the video). He and Jason helped with the preparations. (They arrived on ATV:s). After that he apparently went to Australia. He posted several instagram stories which included Australian IBLP-people. Strangely enough not a single permanent post about that trip. Perhaps coming up on his youtube channel later? 

And now he seems to be visiting J&J in LA. They both posted about making pizza. 

Life is soooooo hard when you are a rich, spoiled and obnoxious young single fundie male. 

[Cam]

18 minutes ago, xenobia said:

An update on my least favourite Duggar not in jail, aka James.

He appeared in Jed's video on Truetts birthday video, which was filmed May 1'st (they say so in the video). He and Jason helped with the preparations. (They arrived on ATV:s). After that he apparently went to Australia. He posted several instagram stories which included Australian IBLP-people. Strangely enough not a single permanent post about that trip. Perhaps coming up on his youtube channel later? 

And now he seems to be visiting J&J in LA. They both posted about making pizza. 

Life is soooooo hard when you are a rich, spoiled and obnoxious young single fundie male. 

Maybe it’s the Duggar version of Amish rumspringa?

[JDuggs]

2 hours ago, xenobia said:

And now he seems to be visiting J&J in LA. They both posted about making pizza. 

Jana is also in the LA pizza video.

Spoiler

 

[Mama Mia]

2 hours ago, JDuggs said:

Jana is also in the LA pizza video.

  Hide contents

 

I kind of love how Jana always has a f** off face when she’s filmed in the kitchen. 

[AprilQuilt]

On 5/4/2023 at 1:46 AM, backyard sylph said:

I really have no interest in whatever the Duggars are ignorant about in regards to travel, just assume it's plentiful. But if I were to travel to London, would those be the items I should put on my list? It's honestly never occurred to me to be highly interested in them. Probably I'd want to see Tate Modern and the National Gallery, and a couple old cemeteries. More so I'd want to head south and visit some coastal areas I've read about it books. 

I'll never get to do these things, just like thinking about them now and then. 

As an ex-Londoner I'd say you have the right idea. Go to Piccadilly Circus and...do what?? Visit the Leicester Square M&M store? It's no different really from heading to Times Square in New York: you wouldn't have learned anything about the actual personality of the city. Cemeteries and galleries are always the right answer.

(If I were to go to Piccadilly I would pop into St James' church and then on to Green Park for an ice cream and that's really it. I would be ignoring Fortnum and Mason, the Ritz etc, because it's all a great big tourist bunfight.)

[Four is Enough]

Not that Baltimore is the big tourist place that London is, but there is some great stuff to see..

The Walters Art Gallery has a lovely museum. Medieval art, including illuminated manuscripts, are available, Lots of portraits, Faberge eggs, and the like. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has earned many awards, worth a listen. If you're in town at the right time, you can catch a big name concert.. Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks, Mark Knopfler, Elton John (?) among others this year. 

The Baltimore Basilica is a lovely church, and the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen is huge and interesting. If you're lucky  you might visit while the choir is practicing for something.. maybe an ordination.

Of course if your a "catch 'em all" kind of sports fan, you can get the Orioles at home at Camden Yards, or the Ravens at home. You'd be within driving distance to get the washington Senators? Generals? Can't remember their name... and then there's the whole Smithsonian museum system, Ford's theater, the Spy  museum, and MANY more things just 50 miles down the road in DC..

[lumpentheologie]

I think we people who hang out on Internet forums may be more interested in researching things for travel than the general population. 😅 And Europeans tend to vastly overestimate the familiarity Americans have with Europe, especially historically. 

My (American) brother just spent a week visiting me in Berlin and could have cared less when I mentioned this thing called the Berlin Wall that maybe had some importance in the world. They never taught us any history past WWII in high school, so he’d never heard of it. And he went to college. But he had researched the things he was interested in: art galleries and gay parties, which are famous here too. 

But really a lot of people just want to let their brains totally check out on vacation. That’s why tourists seem so stupid. I grew up in an Alaskan cruise ship port and let me tell you, a quarter of the (American!) people we got did not think they were in the US. To be fair they had gone through Canada to get there, but we got asked constantly if we took American money. They also asked us a lot why we didn’t clean the glacier, it was so dirty. One time in Rome I overheard a young American man ask the hotel concierge where the point was that all the roads led to. Tourists can be idiots. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by lumpentheologie

[patsymae]

2 minutes ago, lumpentheologie said:

I think we people who hang out on Internet forums may be more interested in researching things for travel than the general population. 😅 And Europeans tend to vastly overestimate the familiarity Americans have with Europe, especially historically. 

My (American) brother just spent a week visiting me in Berlin and could have cared less when I mentioned this thing called the Berlin Wall that maybe had some importance in the world. They never taught us any history past WWII in high school, so he’d never heard of it. And he went to college. But he had researched the things he was interested in: art galleries and gay parties, which are famous here too. 

But really a lot of people just want to let their brains totally check out on vacation. That’s why tourists seem so stupid. I grew up in an Alaskan cruise ship port and let me tell you, a quarter of the (American!) people we got did not think they were in the US. To be fair they had gone through Canada to get there, but we got asked constantly if we took American money. 

I remember a friend telling me how crappy Paris was because his brother went there and he went to the Hard Rock Cafe and the T-shirts were really expensive. Because who wouldn't want to head for the Hard Rock Cafe when you get to go to Paris?

[feministxtian]

6 minutes ago, patsymae said:

Because who wouldn't want to head for the Hard Rock Cafe when you get to go to Paris?

Even my redneck ass would head straight to the Louvre and the Arc De Triumph first...maybe the Eiffel Tower. The odds of me ever making it to Paris are slim and none. Hard Rock? Did that in Vegas, a few times. The food was pretty good. 

[lumpentheologie]

Also just culturally Americans are, in my experience, a lot more interested in turning their brains off during vacation than Europeans are. Which is in part why we have a bad reputation as tourists here. But I suspect it has a lot to do with only getting 2 weeks of paid vacation a year (if you’re lucky) instead of 6-8. That and in general having a more casual code of conduct in public, and being fine with not knowing things as part of that. Australia is kind of similar, in that last respect.

The problem is when ignorance gets self-righteous and preachy, like the Duggars. And clearly working with limited vacation time doesn’t apply to them. 🤦🏻

[Meggo]

40 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

Even my redneck ass would head straight to the Louvre and the Arc De Triumph first...maybe the Eiffel Tower. The odds of me ever making it to Paris are slim and none. Hard Rock? Did that in Vegas, a few times. The food was pretty good. 

I think we went to the Hard Rock in... Memphis maybe? Because it was there. I assume the Hard Rocks are pretty well all the same so - no need to go back. Plenty of other stuff to see in Memphis, we went there for a drink or two. And we did go to the Starbucks in Lima, Peru because it was RIGHT there and we thought it was funny. But more from a photo op perspective than actually getting a drink there.

 

[libgirl2]

51 minutes ago, Meggo said:

I think we went to the Hard Rock in... Memphis maybe? Because it was there. I assume the Hard Rocks are pretty well all the same so - no need to go back. Plenty of other stuff to see in Memphis, we went there for a drink or two. And we did go to the Starbucks in Lima, Peru because it was RIGHT there and we thought it was funny. But more from a photo op perspective than actually getting a drink there.

 

I had pizza hut in the Dominican Republic. I was staying with my cousin and she ordered it for dinner. 

[Kiki03910]

2 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

I think we people who hang out on Internet forums may be more interested in researching things for travel than the general population. 😅 And Europeans tend to vastly overestimate the familiarity Americans have with Europe, especially historically. 

My (American) brother just spent a week visiting me in Berlin and could have cared less when I mentioned this thing called the Berlin Wall that maybe had some importance in the world. They never taught us any history past WWII in high school, so he’d never heard of it. And he went to college. But he had researched the things he was interested in: art galleries and gay parties, which are famous here too. 

But really a lot of people just want to let their brains totally check out on vacation. That’s why tourists seem so stupid. I grew up in an Alaskan cruise ship port and let me tell you, a quarter of the (American!) people we got did not think they were in the US. To be fair they had gone through Canada to get there, but we got asked constantly if we took American money. They also asked us a lot why we didn’t clean the glacier, it was so dirty. One time in Rome I overheard a young American man ask the hotel concierge where the point was that all the roads led to. Tourists can be idiots. 

I live in New Mexico. A shocking number of people east of the Mississippi think it's a foreign country, and I was once asked why I speak English.

[Bad Wolf]

We took grand wolf 1 to France and England when he was 15. We did the tourist stuff, Eiffel tower, Louvre, etc. His favorite was Hotel des  Invalides because he knew so much about Napoleon. We spent hours there, and came back another day. We also hit Normandy because he is a big history buff. There's nothing wrong with hitting the tourist spots, especially if you get a good guide. Hop on hop off buses are great. If you only have limited time, that's what we do.

[SPHASH]

5 hours ago, libgirl2 said:

I had pizza hut in the Dominican Republic. I was staying with my cousin and she ordered it for dinner. 

I ate Burger King in Bergen Norway.  It was my first night there and I was afraid to trying local cuisine right away due to being in a different time zone and my body trying to adjust.  Rest of the trip though I ate prawn, reindeer, elk, and smørbrød.

[Expectopatronus]

I ate at a Pizza Hut in Hong Kong because I was curious about similarities and differences in chain restaurants. It was the first time I had sweet corn on pizza. 

[HeartsAFundie]

6 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

Also just culturally Americans are, in my experience, a lot more interested in turning their brains off during vacation than Europeans are. Which is in part why we have a bad reputation as tourists here. But I suspect it has a lot to do with only getting 2 weeks of paid vacation a year (if you’re lucky) instead of 6-8. That and in general having a more casual code of conduct in public, and being fine with not knowing things as part of that. Australia is kind of similar, in that last respect.

The problem is when ignorance gets self-righteous and preachy, like the Duggars. And clearly working with limited vacation time doesn’t apply to them. 🤦🏻

Oh, I can totally vouch for people turning brains off on vacation after just coming back from my Alaska cruise on Sunday.  I was speaking with some folks on the ship-from the Midwest, I believe-and they happily told me that their ultimate goal on this beautiful cruise was to do as much damage to their livers as possible in a short time period thanks to the free unlimited beverages, including alcoholic ones.  Alrighty, then!  

Hey, my ultimate goal on this bucket list Alaska cruise was to see Mendenhall Glacier and Glacier Bay, but priorities, I guess.